Notes from FOO Camp 2006

(photo courtesy of D Richard Hipp).

This weekend, I was lucky enough to participate in FOO camp 2006, an OReilly-sponsored, self-organizing geek campout/party/gabfest in Sebastopol, California. It was  FABULOUS -- great food, stimulating conversations, thought-provoking presentations, and even a high-quality late-night jam session with kick-ass musicians. The uber-geeky crowd included grad students, maverick consultants, rock-star techies, hard-driving CEOs, and a sprinkling of venture capitalists. I re-connected with some old friends, and met some wonderful new people that I'm hoping to see again soon. Some random highlights:

• Driving up to camp with the lovely Doria Fan, a digital designer and recent graduate of the NYU ITP programn - and having an easy, fun, stimulating conversation - the first of many that weekend.
• Shortly after arriving, seeing many familiar, friendly, smiling faces - Philip Rosedale, Cory Ondrejka, danah boyd, Caterina Fake, Lili Cheng, Julian Bleeker, Jyri Engestrom, Kevin Kelly, Liz Lawley, Howard Rheingold, David Weekly... and being warmly greeted and welcomed to the event.
  
• Being introduced (by Cory) to Jane McGonigal, someone I've long admired and exchanged email with - but never met F2F. Jane and I had a great connection, and ended up running a session about Social Games together. I hope to see her again in the near future - we're definately kindred spirits, and I find her work and attitude very inspiring.
• Seeing danah and sharing a big, warm hug.
• Meeting Zaheda Bharat, an open-source community evangelist at Google who's also a massage therapist, a trans-atlantic traveller, and all-around wonderful human being - full of light and ideas and enthusiasm.
• Comparing notes about work/life balance with author, interaction designer and mom-to-be Jennifer Tidwell.
• Meeting Eric Freeman F2F - someone I've connected with via email and mutual friends, but never actually seen in the flesh.
  
• Meeting Dave Sifry and chatting about kids, literature, and religion over coffee - and then attending a great session that Dave and Bradley Horowitz ran called "Leadership Hacks" where we explored the difference between managament and leadership, and everyone shared their experiences and "hacks" providing leadership in technical organizations. The conversation was so stimulating that the group continued to discuss the topic over lunch, and on into the afternoon.
• Connecting with Larry Augustin, an intense, thoughtful, and articulate VC and entrepreneur who attended the Leadership Hacks session, and had some really interesting things to say about listening, learning and decision-making.
  
• Playing with cool little soccer-kicking robots using a hacked-up game controller -- while catching up with Kevin Kelly (one of my favorite people, and a fellow Coastside resident)
• Catching up with Lili Cheng -- a bubbly, high-energy, multi-talented Microsoftie who moves smoothly between doing research and building products -- and finding out that we have amazingly similar child-rearing philosophies. If we lived in the same city, our families would be getting together all the time...
  
• Meeting David Hornik, a VC blogger whom I've long admired - and discovering that he's an funny, quick-witted, good-natured guy with a devilish twinkle in his eye...
• Hanging out with Caterina Fake, Philip Rosedale, Tara Hunt, and a gaggle of other folks, singing old Beatle songs into the wee hours of the morning, playing guitar until my fingers were raw... then afterwards, chatting by the campfire with Philip about neural networks and brain science.
  
• Listening to Sara Winge (co-director of FOO camp) play  amazing jazz guitar riffs at the jam session... and wishing that she would keep playing for hours and hours, she was THAT good. What a multi-talented woman!
• Hearing Kathy Sierra talk about how to identify and motivate passionate users - it was the only session I attended that was actually a lecture, rather than a discussion - and WELL worth the hour invested. Great stuff - I want to get ahold of her slides, which were filled with useful, practical insights about UI design.
• Participating in Liz Lawley's session about digitizing your personal media library... and then happily chatting with Liz while packing up my camping gear - enjoying her stories about kids, education and travel. She's a warm, down-to-earth person who seems to have that rare ability to balance her worklife and homelife - something I aspire to, and am always striving to do better.
• Meeting Steven Levy, a longtime contact of my husband's, someone I've admired but never met... he participated in the session I did with Jane, and had some interesting observations about social games and game mechanics.
  
• Being invited by Rael Dornfest to give a tutorial at Etech 2007, based on my Etech 2006 talk (which is apparently what got me invited to FOOcamp). I was blown away by how many people I met at FOO had seen (or heard about) my talk, and had used those ideas in their work. I had NO IDEA. There's nothing like the feeling of knowing that your work has been useful to other people, and helped them achieve their dreams. This made me incredibly happy - and motivated to develop those ideas further.
• Eating delicious food at every meal that I didn't have to shop for, prepare, or clean up after. HEAVEN!

All in all, this was one of the best weekends that I've ever experienced - the perfect combination of intellectual stimulation, social engagement, and relaxed good times. I'm sending out a big THANK YOU to Tim, Sara, and the entire O'Reilly staff, who brought this fabulous group together, and worked tirelessly to make sure that everyone had what they needed, and everything kept running smoothly. What a great way to end the summer!

Comments

[Cathy Brooks]

Great post! I agree with you that David Hornik is a witty guy and I'd call the devilish twinkle more of a 5-alarm conflagration! I had the pleasure of speaking with him myself recently and just posted the first of a two-part podcast from that chat. So for anyone who didn't make it to Foo Camp, you can hear his wit first hand at http://www.guidewireconnection.com/podcasts/default.asp?item=177163